presumably he has guessed the path evolution will take? It seems rather far fetched to be able to predict something so uncertain and dependent on e.g. anthropomorphic behaviour (including the behaviour of whatever we evolve into), geology, climate, sun, solar system events, etc.
It’s not so much evolution he is predicting, but the biological and geological future of the Earth based on several known long-term effects.
The rate of cooling of the Earth’s interior, the gravitational interactions with other objects, and a steady increase in the Sun's luminosity is well documented.
The sun is just another star, and the basic of star phases is good understood. The sun will eventually burn up most of its fuel and enter a red giant phase that destroys the Earth if we don't intervene [0].
Evolution requires natural selection pressure, which we've largely eliminated. I don't think our species will evolve much more unless we deliberately start selectively breeding.
Evolution requires selection pressure, whether natural or otherwise.
And there's still selection pressure from so many sources. Partial list: Some people die before they reach breeding age, some people refuse to have children, some people are born unable to have children, some people have children with dead-beat spouses, some people are simply incapable of caring properly for kids, some people are prohibitively undesirable as mates, and so on.
Comments
presumably he has guessed the path evolution will take? It seems rather far fetched to be able to predict something so uncertain and dependent on e.g. anthropomorphic behaviour (including the behaviour of whatever we evolve into), geology, climate, sun, solar system events, etc.
It’s not so much evolution he is predicting, but the biological and geological future of the Earth based on several known long-term effects.
The rate of cooling of the Earth’s interior, the gravitational interactions with other objects, and a steady increase in the Sun's luminosity is well documented.
The sun is just another star, and the basic of star phases is good understood. The sun will eventually burn up most of its fuel and enter a red giant phase that destroys the Earth if we don't intervene [0].
0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun#Life_phases
Evolution requires natural selection pressure, which we've largely eliminated. I don't think our species will evolve much more unless we deliberately start selectively breeding.
Evolution requires selection pressure, whether natural or otherwise.
And there's still selection pressure from so many sources. Partial list: Some people die before they reach breeding age, some people refuse to have children, some people are born unable to have children, some people have children with dead-beat spouses, some people are simply incapable of caring properly for kids, some people are prohibitively undesirable as mates, and so on.
Yes, this is basically a "What would happen if intelligence never evolved" story.